


An Ache in the Brain; A Confliction in the Heart

by Kawaii_Kitty360



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Crushes, Idk what i'm doing, M/M, this probably is never gonna get done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-09-26 06:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20384824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kawaii_Kitty360/pseuds/Kawaii_Kitty360
Summary: Dib has a crush on Zim, but how can he when his friend is not only an alien, but an alien that was once hellbent on destroying the earth?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> look folks, i really liked this idea but like, i'm probably never gonna finish this. so i'm gonna post what i have and if i work on it anymore i'll post any updates
> 
> i've got like 10 more fanfics in the works for this fandom so uh, yeah
> 
> those'll come out too. at some point.
> 
> anyway I know Dib is, canonically, now 12, and Zim is, canonically, eons older than him, but I've fucked with their ages so now Dib's 18-19 and Zim is... well, still significantly older than him.  
Anyway, first chapter is, like, a diary of sorts to kind of introduce what i'm tryin' to get here, y'know, y'feel, y'dig? radical man

_My name is Dib Membrane. I am 18 years old and my best friend is an alien. _

_Let me explain._

_When I was 12, my home planet, Earth, was invaded by a lone alien invader named Zim, with the goal to prepare the planet for the further invasion of his species and, more importantly, the Almighty Tallest. I was the only one standing between him and his plans for the annihilation of the world, and, surprisingly, his plans almost came to fruition. Using my father's invention for his own evil purposes, he teleported Earth to be directly in the path of an Irken spacecraft's line of destruction, but the teleportation process opened up a Florpus, a giant black hole-esque rip in the space-time continuum. No matter what happened, Zim was going to win._

_Thankfully, my father is a 'BAMF' (as Gaz likes to call him now) and he, with help from me and my sister, was able to teleport the world back to its rightful place in the universe, foiling Zim’s plans completely and fully. _

_After that, something in Zim… changed. I don’t know how to explain it, but one day Zim was his usual self, and the next he was just… off. His attendance to skool, which had always been relatively perfect, was dwindling, and his further attempts to overtake… anything… were no longer as insistent as usual. _

_It was a state I recognized from when he realized the Almighty Tallest were never going to conquer Earth, and just sent him here to get him out of their hair. (Or… antennae?)_

_As much as I hated him, I found myself feeling… concerned for him, and I went to ask him myself what his problem was._

_He told me that after his latest failure, he could no longer reach the Almighty Tallest. He was sure he had been cut off from them completely, and so he no longer had the drive or energy to take over the planet. There was no reason for him to. _

_I thought he was just tricking me again, and in my anger, I stormed out of his house and never looked back._

_As time went on, I continued to keep an eye on Zim’s house, but I only ever saw GIR leave. This went on for months before I had enough and I needed to see what he was planning._

_The answer was nothing._

_Zim spent his days just… lounging. He told me that, since he didn’t need to gather information on the species, he had no reason to return to skool and had actually already taken care of it, having his ‘parents’ call in and say that they were pulling Zim from the program. This came not only as a shock to me, but also kind of a relief. No longer did I have to worry about what schemes he might be cooking up to endanger the rest of our classmates._

_Over time, as I realized he was no longer any kind of threat towards Earth, I found myself enjoying his companionship. It was true that he was an alien, originally tasked to overtake the world, but the more time I spent with him, the more I realized that he was no longer an enemy, but he was a friend. _

_What’s worse was that when people called him my best friend, I didn’t stop them. I didn’t feel the need to anymore._

_As the years passed, I noticed that we developed some kind of sick dependency on each other: I was Zim’s only friend, and he mine._

_ <s>But, as expected with anything involving Zim, things took a sudden left turn when I turned 17. You could call it a kind of… sexual awakening, of sorts. I realized that what I started feeling towards Zim was</s> _

_ <s>When I turned 17, I found</s> _

_ <s>My feelings towards Zim changed when I turned 17. They were less innoc</s> _

_ <s>It didn’t take much brainpower to realize I had developed a crush</s> _

_ God I can’t write this without sounding like a girl. _

_I have a crush on Zim._

_And I don’t know what to do about it._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hrrgnnnghhh
> 
> all of these chapters are gonna be pretty short and i apologize for that

The sun bled through the cracks in Dib’s blinds, casting a perfect beam of light onto his eyes that roused him from his impromptu nap, and he groaned as he sat up and rubbed his eyes and fixed his glasses, taking another second to twist in place, popping his back with a resounding _CRACK!_ that was twice as satisfying as it sounded. Rubbing some feeling back into his cheek, he glanced at the place he had fallen asleep: his desk. His notebook still lay open on the surface, pages covered in writing and wrinkles from where he had fallen asleep. He could see the harsh lines, scribbling out sentences he couldn’t erase- a risk ran from writing with a pen, and he could see one of the last lines he wrote. Seeing it written out on paper still felt like a slap in the face. 

Knowing he had a crush was one thing. Admitting it was something completely different, and Dib groaned loudly as he flipped the notebook shut and pushed away from his desk, stretching out the rest of his limbs for a few seconds before standing. His phone was lying next to his notebook, and he grabbed it, lifting it to his face and waking it up to see the time.

5:49 PM, Saturday. It was almost dinner time.

Rolling out the crick in his neck, Dib exited his room and made his way downstairs to find Gaz, his father, and Foodio 3000 already in the kitchen. Gaz played on her phone while Professor Membrane and Foodio set about dinner, and Dib took his spot next to Gaz at the table. 

“Have a nice nap?” she asked, not looking up from her game, and Dib yawned in response. As much as he liked sleeping at night, naps weren’t really his thing. Between paranormal investigations and balancing his skoolwork, he didn’t really have the time to waste snoozing in the middle of the day. Even now, a fresh hi skool graduate with no skoolwork to do, he wasn’t a fan of naps.

“Ah, your brother has arrived! Dinner can now be served!!”

With a yell and a violent surge of electricity, Foodio 3000 instantly prepared dinner that was then zapped onto their respective plates. Beef roast, with mashed potatoes and corn. It looked as appetizing as ever.

Dib expected a pile of pudding to fly and ruin the meal, but when Dib was 15, Clembrane just kind of... had a meltdown. Literally. Zim hadn’t built him to last, and eventually, the molecules that made up Clembrane’s existence failed, decayed, and became a pile of disgusting matter that to this day still sits in a Tupperware container on the bottom shelf in the back of the fridge. 

Dib contemplated throwing it out after a week, but Gaz nearly knocked him on his ass when he even hinted at doing such a thing. Clembrane may not’ve been perfect, but he was still family. 

...Somewhat.

“Are your little foreign friend and his adorable dog not joining us tonight?” Dib’s father asked as he sat at the table, noticing the empty seats that usually held Zim and GIR.

Dib scooped a large heap of food into his mouth seconds before his father spoke, and so he took a second to chew and swallow to make enough room in his mouth to speak. “Dad, I told you this morning that Zim said he wouldn’t be coming over today,” is what he tried to say, but it mostly came out as gibberish. His father either didn’t bother to try and understand his words or just didn’t care, and Dib moved to stand to get something to drink, but as soon as he did, a glass and the carton of orange juice was placed in front of him by Foodio’s flexible arms. He always had some kind of ability to read their minds, knowing exactly what it was they wanted seemingly before they even knew they wanted it themselves. “Thanks, Foodio.”

The robot didn’t respond with words and instead made that weird, high pitched scream in the back of his throat that Dib always thought sounded like a mechanical squirrel getting its spine slowly extracted from its body. 

Don’t ask how he knew what that sounded like. Not even he was sure.

“What was his excuse this time?” Gaz mumbled, and Dib glanced at her just in time to see her chop down on an enormous bite that left her cheeks bulging. 

Dib thought back to the day before, when Zim stopped Dib as he was leaving the house, grabbing him by the tail of his coat and looking up at him with a weird look in his huge, pink eyes. He said something like, ‘GIR and I will not be able to attend dinner tomorrow due to reasons I do not need to specify. Good day, Dib-human.’ 

Dib relayed this information to his sister, who cracked her eyes open just to roll them. “Classic Zim. That’s even lamer than the time he tried to say they couldn’t make it because Minimoose got lost in the astral plane.”

Dib remembered being there to witness it happen, and shivered just thinking about it. It was one of the few excuses that actually had some credibility behind it- not like his family would ever understand. That was just one of many reasons their friendship worked so well- they were the only people to ever truly understand one another. 

He shrugged in response to his sister’s comment and poured himself a glass of OJ. 

She stared at him, and he stared back as he took a long, awkward sip from his cup. “You’re not worried about him?”

Dib finished his sip and smacked his lips together. “Why would I be?”

“You used to be all gung-ho about keeping a watchful eye on Zim, and now, when he says something as vague as _that_, you don’t bat an eye?”

It was true: the way Zim phrased his reason was a little worrisome, and some part of Dib itched to immediately go spy on the extraterrestrial and make sure he wasn’t doing anything that would jeopardize the safety of the world, but Zim had made it clear that world demolition was no longer part of his M.O., and after all these years, the least Dib could do would be to trust Zim’s word. 

In response, Dib once again shrugged and scooped more food into his mouth. 

“Well, if he won’t be coming to dinner, then dinner will come to him!” Professor Membrane clapped Dib on the back, and the teen lurched forward, food nearly flying out of his mouth and getting sucked into his lungs at the same time. 

“What?” he choked, holding a hand to his mouth as he coughed, struggling to breathe and stay alive. Christ, he didn't wanna go to Zim's! He hadn't showered, he looked a mess, he at least needed to wash his hair or _something-_

“Foodio 3000 already prepared extra for your friend! We cannot let it go to waste, can we?”

“I’ll eat it,” Gaz said, raising her hand, but Professor Membrane ignored her in favor of taking a plastic-wrapped plate of fresh food from said robot, thrusting it Dib’s way. 

Dib had no other choice but to take it, but he traded it for his cup on the table, which he finished off in one gulp to help wash the food down. “He doesn’t even-” _cough_ “-eat it.”

His father announced, “Nonsense! His plate is always the cleanest at the table!” like it meant anything.

“That’s because he gives it to GIR,” Dib tried, but his father waved his hand dismissively and grabbed his own plate off the table, whisking it off with him to his lab, as always.

Dib huffed, finished dinner, and returned upstairs to quickly get dressed and at least attempt to look presentable. Gaz was in the living room and Foodio was working on the dishes by the time he returned, and he grabbed the plate, slipped on his boots, and left the house, still running a hand self-consciously through his hair.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah finally, a longer chapter lmao
> 
> we also (finally) get some dib/zim interaction
> 
> and GIR. cuz what's an Invader Zim fanfic without GIR?
> 
> thanks for all the wonderful comments btw! y'all are giving me the drive i need to keep working on this, and i appreciate it a lot ^^ <3333

Zim’s house wasn’t too far from the Membrane’s, but it felt like it took ages to get there. That may’ve been because Dib was dragging his feet, grumbling to himself, and kicking rocks the entire way there. He knew he should just get there, drop the food off, and get back home before his Saturday completely slipped away from him. It wasn’t like he had anything to do anymore, since he already (finally) graduated skool, but Saturday was still Saturday. 

Maybe he would’ve been more willing to get there if his father literally hadn’t forced the task upon him. Having to scarf down dinner, and then immediately make his way to his nemesis-gone-best-friend’s house was a definite mood killer. Not that he had anything against Zim anymore (well, that was a lie. He didn’t trust Zim completely- he didn’t think he ever would- and there would always be a part of him that wanted to see Zim strapped to an autopsy table, sliced open and innards strewn all over, but at least Zim was tolerable to be around at this point) but he didn’t want to spend time with the alien that day. He just needed a break from the guy, but his dad just wrecked that in one fell swoop. 

Zim probably didn’t want to hang out, either, and that’s why he made some kind of excuse. Dib didn’t mind. They spent so much time together, so it was good to take a break just for themselves sometimes.

Dib’s feet stopped, and he glanced up, staring at the familiar gnome-guarded walk that led to Zim’s base, then he looked back down at the plate in his hands. Sighing, he pushed his annoyance to the side and approached the door.

Even before they started routinely hanging out, they learned each other’s boundaries, mainly through trial and error. Dib learned that Zim didn’t care if Dib came barging in, provided he knew about Dib’s coming beforehand, and Zim learned that Dib preferred when he came through the front door instead of coming in from Dib’s window, unannounced. At least when he came in the front door, they had some kind of warning about his arrival and it gave Dib a minute to do anything he needed to before Zim inevitably came crashing through his bedroom door and violated every inch of Dib’s personal space. 

However, Zim had no warning to Dib’s arrival, and so he rapped his knuckles against the door, ran a hand through his hair, and heard a crash immediately from inside.

“Pizza!” a familiar voice screeched, and the door was flung open by an all-too-familiar green dog, the hastily stitched paws already reaching up in anticipation.

Out of habit, Dib withdrew immediately as soon as the door opened, holding the beef roast up and out of the way of GIR’s anticipating hands. “Err… no. Sorry, GIR.”

GIR slumped, but only a little, flipping the hood over his head off and exclaiming, “Hey, Mary!!! Where’s my pizza?!” 

“Uh, not with me.” Dib glanced into the house, able to see the entire living room thanks to the door being open completely. He couldn’t see Zim anywhere, which usually meant he was underground. The thought should’ve perturbed him, but the most Zim did down there anymore was work on his PAK, so he didn’t think too much about it. “Listen, my dad wanted me to bring this to you guys.” He held the plate down to GIR, who took it and immediately let out a loud ‘Oooooooooooh!’ in response. “I told him you guys didn’t want to come to dinner, so he insisted I bring it to you. Anyway, that’s, uh...”

It shouldn’t have bothered him so much. Old habits die hard, though, and Dib fiddled with his coat lapels as he glanced back into the house. “Where’s Zim?”

“He’s in his underground lab!” GIR announced, then promptly turned and ran back into the house, leaving the door wide open. Dib continued to stand on the porch and watched as GIR resumed his spot on the couch, and ate the plate, plastic and all. Dib didn’t expect to get it back. 

“Right. Uh, then, I’m gonna leave.” 

Dib stepped forward, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled the door closed.

He heard the mechanical whir before he saw what was happening, and about-faced to stare directly into all four pairs of glowing gnome eyes. “Oh, no.”

The door, now behind him, opened, and Dib whipped around to see a familiar shape leaning on the doorway. It was a weird experience, having to look down at him. Once, they were the same height, but now Zim stood just below Dib’s chest, and his slouch against the doorframe made him even shorter. “My, my, if it isn’t the Dib-stink. To what does Zim owe the pleasure?”

Dib ran a hand over his face, mind racing. He hadn’t even stopped by the bathroom- what if he had food on his face or something in his teeth-- oh, god, his teeth he hadn’t brushed them since yesterday night his breath probably smelled so _bad--_ “I was dropping off dinner,” was what Dib forced himself to say as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, ignoring the slight shake to them. He’d never shown up to Zim’s unannounced before, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little scared. He had to remind himself that they were friends now, even as he felt the eyes of all the gnomes behind him boring into his back, and he wasn’t in any danger. He really felt like he was, though.

Zim made a face akin to wrinkling his nonexistent nose. “I have no need for your disgusting Earthen culinary.”

“I know. I gave it to GIR.”

“Good,” Zim pushed off the doorway and waved his hand, a few flicks of his wrist, signifying that Dib could and should get off of the porch. “Then leave- wait, you’re trying to trick Zim, aren’t you?” 

“What? No. Seriously, I just came to--”

“You lie! Dib-worm never comes for just one thing!”

“Uh, yes I do.” Dib raised an eyebrow, slowly. “I come to hang out all the time. That’s one thing.”

Zim made a face and shook his head. “You also eat the pizza Zim orders, and sit on Zim’s couch, and play Zim’s video games. That is more than just one thing.” 

“Uh, okay. But this time I really did just come to drop off dinner.”

“But,” Zim stepped up to him, leaning into Dib’s space and jabbing a finger into his chest, hard. Dib winced and stepped back, the underside of his boot slipping on the stairs and making him stumble farther backwards, feeling his face heat up and cursing himself for it, “why would you, if you knew I wouldn’t eat it?”

“Because my dad made me,” Dib explained, beginning to feel the usual irritation he felt when Zim made him explain everything in explicit detail. “He didn’t know you weren’t coming today and had Foodio prepare extra food, and once he found out you weren’t gonna be there to eat it, he made me come and give it to you.” He motioned to the couch, and Zim turned to stare at GIR, who was humming some kind of tune as he watched TV. “So I came, gave it to GIR, and now I’m trying to leave. That’s it.”

Zim turned back to Dib, face still scrunched in disbelief. “You weren’t here to spy on Zim? I would not put it past you, you are quite the curious little wretch-worm.”

“Thanks,” Dib grunted, and stepped completely off the stairs. “I’m gonna go.”

“Yes, yes. Go, return to your pitiful human family,” Zim waved him away again, turning his head with his eyes closed- a look of pure indifference. “Leave Zim be.”

“I will,” Dib retorted, though he felt his brows set into a confused furrow. “I don’t need your permission for that.”

Zim let out a little huff before he turned around and stepped back inside, pawing the door slightly, and Dib watched it sway closed. 

Okay. That was really weird. In fact, as he walked away from the experience, he felt like he should’ve stuck around- hung out, even if Zim didn’t want him there. Dib wasn’t opposed to hanging out with Zim, but if Zim didn’t want to hang out with Dib, he wasn’t going to make him.

The walk back was just as slow as the walk there.

* * *

Dib had been home for maybe two minutes- just long enough to take his shoes off and run upstairs to drop his jacket off and change from jeans into sweatpants and from a shirt to a black tanktop- when he found himself in the kitchen, getting something to drink. With a glass already on the counter, Dib peered into the fridge to check his options, settling for milk and pulling out the gallon to pour into his glass. Shutting the door, he turned around and _holy fucking shit jesus christ-_

Dib jumped with a shriek, heart jumping out of his chest and the gallon nearly flying across the kitchen as his body jerked so hard from fear. The reason for his fear was his sister, who had suddenly appeared behind him without making a single noise. “Holy shit, Gaz!”

She crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the counter closest to her, a weird look on her face. Dib collected himself and poured the milk into his cup, eyeballing his sister as he put the gallon back in the fridge. He moved to grab the cup and turned to lean against the counter, taking a slow sip as they maintained a tense kind of eye contact. 

He didn’t like her silence, or the look on her face that Dib couldn’t quite describe. Somewhere between condescending and all-knowing. It made Dib highly uncomfortable. That kind of look could only spell disaster.

Then the look turned into something different, and a smirk played across her lips as she announced, “I knew you’d become gay for Zim; I just didn’t expect it to take this long.”

Dib nearly spat his drink out his nose, sending himself into a coughing fit that he barely survived before tossing a horrified look at his sister. “_What?!_ How did you--?!”

She looked like she knew something huge that Dib didn’t. It chilled him to his very core. “You shouldn’t leave your things just laying around, Dib.”

Dib stared at her before he realized what she meant, and her smirk grew as his eyes widened. No. She wouldn’t have… 

“You shouldn’t go into other people’s rooms!!”

“You shouldn’t leave your diary out where people can see it, Dib!”

“It is _not_ a diary, Gaz- it’s a journal!”

“Pff-- whatever. All I know is you’ve finally realized you’re in love with Zim, and I’m guessing you still haven’t done anything about it.” She rested herself against the counter and pushed herself up to sit on top of it. “Come on, Dib, it’s seriously pathetic to see you two dance around each other like this.” 

Dib shook his head violently, reaching up to push his glasses against his forehead and pinch the bridge of his nose. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Gaz.”

“Uh, yeah, I do. Need I remind you I read your diary?”

“No, you don’t need to remind me,” Dib hissed, glaring at her and, just this once, letting the D-word slide. “And there is no dancing involved. It’s not like that. It’ll never be like that.”

“And how are you so sure about that?”

“Because Zim isn’t a human! He probably doesn’t even know what love is!” 

Gaz rolled her eyes and pushed off the counter. “You shouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

“You really shouldn’t go into other people’s rooms!”

She waved her hand and turned to walk out, but then she stopped and looked at Dib with an unreadable expression. “You really should have let me pop that huge-ass pimple on your forehead before you left.” 

Dib slapped a hand against his brow, feeling the bump his sister was talking about in horror. Grabbing his glass of milk, he hightailed it upstairs to his bedroom. Behind him, the TV clicked on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo more interaction
> 
> usually i try to keep one chapter ahead before posting another chapter (by this point i'd like to be working on chapter 6) but chapter 5 is taking a while so i'm just gonna slap this one here since i have it.

Gaz’s words haunted Dib’s entire night. He didn’t plan to sleep anyway, but he knew, at this rate, he wouldn’t be able to. His mind was racing, and he sat at his desk with a jiggly leg that rattled everything on the wooden surface, staring down at the mess of papers but having no motivation to do anything with them. 

Thankfully, his lovely sister had been exaggerating when she said the pimple was huge- it wasn’t even that noticeable, just a small, red mound just above his right eyebrow. Dib knew he should keep his gross paws off it, but the knowledge it existed made him want to prod at it every couple of seconds, the tense frown on his face growing every time he touched it.

To stop himself from messing with it too much, he finished his milk, left the empty cup on his desk, and clambered into the shower, washing off the grime he had accumulated over the day and spending a little extra time washing his face to prevent further breakout. He was pretty sure Gaz had some face masks around that she probably wouldn’t mind him using, especially since there were no face masks that you could use without looking like something from a bad horror movie from the 90s, and she always enjoyed things that made him look like an even bigger loser than usual.

And so, there he sat, with a slimy… thing… plastered to his skin, hair still wet and staring at papers full of equations for his dad and his own research for the Swollen Eyeball Network. As the seconds passed, he began to feel more and more helpless. 

He wanted to blame it on Gaz, but he knew that wasn’t fair. It was his fault for overthinking it so much.

His brain was alight with ‘what if’s. _What if_ Zim is capable of love? _What if_ Zim liked him back? _What if_ Zim _didn’t_ like him back? _What if_ this crush was unrequited and left Dib heartbroken? _What if_ Irkens mated for life- _what if_ Zim already had somebody he liked? _What if_ love meant something different on Irk- something awful, violent, disgusting, or horrific? _What if_ Irkens were incapable of love?

That was all Dib could think about before, during, and after his shower and now he just hunched, trapped in his brain, pen bouncing between two fingers in tandem with his leg. His face felt gross. Gaz said he had to leave the mask on for 20 minutes or so. He grabbed his phone and looked at the timer he set. 14 minutes left. 

He couldn’t handle it. It was disgusting. At this rate, he would _rather_ deal with the pimple and probable subsequent breakout- anything to let his face _breathe_ again.

With a loud sigh, Dib released all the tension in his body and fell backwards, relaxing against the back of his computer chair. He sat there for a minute, listening to the sound of the wind out his window brush a tree branch against his window. After a while, though, it got annoying, and Dib pushed himself upright. “Okay,” he muttered, rolling his neck and shoulders and hunching over his desk with a determined look on his face. “Focus. I gotta get some work done. No more thinking about--” A noise, directly to his left. Dib turned his chair and squinted and gawked, “_ZIM?!_”

And there the alien was, halfway into Dib’s room already. They made eye contact- concentration meeting pure shock (through a squint, since Dib couldn’t wear glasses with the face mask on), and then it clicked. 

That noise he was hearing… it wasn’t a tree branch. 

Dib slapped his hands over his bare chest, feeling his entire body flush. Why, why, _why_ had he decided to forgo a shirt after his shower?! At least he had half the decency to throw on some sweats to lounge in instead of just hanging about in his underwear like some kind of _ape._ “What are you doing here?!”

“Do not thank me, human!” Zim announced as he fell in, toppling onto Dib’s bed with the gracefulness of a tasered snake. 

Again, Dib had no idea how he knew how that looked.

“Zim is here to--”

There was a beat where they just kind of… stared at each other. Dib’s discomfort continued to grow, and he averted his gaze, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. Maybe he could discreetly snatch up a shirt or something-

And then Zim screamed, and so did Dib when one of Zim’s PAK guns jammed into his face. “A Lorkiop Face Muncher!! Get off of Dib’s big head, you vile slug!!”

“What?!” Dib shrieked, leaning back as Zim came closer. “This isn’t a Face Munch-- _ow!_” Zim’s claws grabbed the edge of the mask and began to peel it off, and Dib felt some layers of his skin go with it. “Stop it!”

“Be quiet!” Zim growled, leaning closer still, and Dib had no more chair to scramble against. “The more your disgusting face squirms, the harder it will be to remove the Face Muncher without ripping your entire face off with it.”

“You’re ripping my face off with it anyway!” Dib grabbed his hand, like it would help anything, and Zim’s eyes met his, and Dib realized just how close they were. Zim smelled like grease. “This isn’t some kind of alien creature, Zim- it’s called a face ma-- _OW!_”

Zim glared as Dib fought to get him to release the mask. “Let go, Dib. You wouldn’t know a Lorkiop from a Zerqlor.”

“And I can tell you that this thing is neither! _You_ let go!”

Zim didn’t. Neither did Dib. They just glared at each other, until Dib blinked and the face mask peeled a little more, and it _hurt._

“It’s called,” Dib began through gritted teeth, “a face mask, Zim. It’s a perfectly normal, _human_ thing. And you trying to yank it off is _hurting_ me.”

When Zim didn’t move, Dib was worried he was gonna just yank it off like a bandaid, but then Zim let out a little puff of air and released the mask. Dib immediately tried to smooth it back against his skin, glaring at the boy, who stepped back and finally gave Dib enough room to breathe. “Fine. But when your face is gone, don’t come crying to me.”

“Why are you here, space boy?” Dib asked, wiping the gooey residue on his sweats. “I thought you didn’t want to hang out today.”

“You thought wrong. WRONG! Zim was just busy today, is all.”

“Busy with what?”

Zim gave a noncommittal shrug. “Stuff. _Things._ And before you even ask, no. It’s nothing about the destruction of your pathetic world. I thought you trusted me by now, dookie-Dib.”

“I… wasn’t going to say anything about that,” Dib leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. While he didn’t entirely _trust_ Zim, he gave the guy at least enough credit not to assume things without proof anymore. Zim had a hard time hiding his ‘ingenious’ plans to take over the world, especially from Dib, so the fact that there was no mention of it made it hard for Dib to jump to conclusions. 

“But since you insist, I will tell you!” Zim clasped his hands behind his back for the brief second it took him to walk to Dib’s bed, and Dib watched him turn his back towards it and jump in place, landing on the bed effortlessly. “GIR got one of his disgusting pig dolls stuck in one of my machines and he would not shut up about it until I retrieved it for him. However, getting it out required me to disassemble the entire thing. I repaired most of it before you came over on the Fry-Day, and I was in the middle of repairing the rest when you showed up earlier. _Unannounced,_ I may add.”

“I’m sorry,” Dib sighed, leaning against his desk and pulling back as his elbow rustled the papers scattered across the surface. “Like I mentioned, my dad--”

“Zim understands the situation,” he said, holding up a hand. “But it made me aware that you perhaps missed my company, so as soon as I finished reassembling my machine, I came.” 

Ah. That explained the grease smell. 

Sure, Zim misunderstood the situation, but knowing that Zim thought about him enough to pay him a visit as soon as he was available was kind of warming, and Dib rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Gotcha. Uh, well, I’m… actually kind of busy right now, so-”

“Busy? With what? What could be more important than _Zim?!_”

“Uh, work?” Dib motioned to the mess. “My dad wants me to do some mathwork for him, and I have some stuff to report to SEN.”

“Mathwork?” Zim spat the word. “I thought you hated doing all that real-y science-y gobbledygook.”

“I do, but…” he sighed. “It’s just a few pages. It’s not like I’m devoting my life to it or anything. And, like I said, I have some other stuff for the Swollen Eyeball Network.”

The fuzzy blob that was Zim kind of perked at that. “Like what? More Bigfeets?”

“Well, yeah, and some other stuff,” Dib glanced at the papers, taking a second to actually sort them. The jitters that lasted until a few moments ago had knocked the papers out of their organized piles, and he quickly set about arranging everything again. 

“I see,” Zim hummed, and when the bed creaked, Dib turned, worried Zim was leaving only to see that he had laid down, knees still bent down the side. Dib had upgraded to a larger bed as he got older, and Zim barely even made it halfway from the side edge to the wall. Had he been completely on the bed, Dib bet he would be able to lay the whole length, the top of his head just barely touching the wall and heels of his feet almost falling off. If he had his head on Dib’s pillows, he wouldn’t be able to reach the middle. 

It was kind of cute, and Dib immediately looked back to his papers. 

“You can stay, though,” Dib said to the desk. “If you want.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving,” Zim responded, and Dib felt a weird giddy feeling rush through him. 

“Good-- I-I mean cool. Er, uh, anyway--”

A loud ring made both of them jump near out of their skin. Dib fumbled, moving the papers he just placed to grab his phone and shut off the noise. The timer had gone off. It was time to remove the face mask.

“Listen, just, make yourself at home,” Dib gestured around the room. “I gotta go, uh,” he gestured to his face. “Take the face muncher off.”

“So it _is_ a face muncher!!”

“No! Look, just, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Dib made his way to the bathroom, and flicked on the light on the way to the sink. Seeing himself again, for the first time since he applied the thing, startled him a little, but the sooner he took the thing off, the better. 

The only problem was that he wasn’t sure how to go about that.

“Okay,” he breathed, reaching towards the bit that Zim had already started peeling off. He secured it between his thumb and forefinger and began lifting it, grimacing through the pain of his literal _skin being ripped off._

But he worked at it, lifting what he could away before starting to work on other corners, other parts, until all that remained was the middle, across his nose, the middle of his brow, and his chin. “Okay,” he repeated, and grabbed all the raised corners with both hands. He took in a breath, and began to pull. 

He bit back a pained screech, turning it into a low groan as he ripped the mask away from his skin, gasping in relief once it came free. He still had to squint at his reflection, but he could tell his face was bright red. He looked at the mask and nearly gagged. It was covered with all the gross things Dib’s pores have accumulated over the years. Granted, a lot of it was also probably particles of Dib’s skin, but still. Gross.

“And you’re positive that wasn’t a Lorkiop Face Muncher?”

Dib nearly jumped out of his skin again, turning to see Zim standing in the doorway. Even as a blurry shape, Dib could see how unimpressed he was. “I’m positive,” Dib said as he tossed the mask in the trash, and then turned to wash his hands. His skin tingled, and once he dried his hands, the first thing he did was touch his face.

His fingers grazed the smoothness of it, and he couldn’t hold back his surprise. No wonder Gaz liked them so much. Despite the pain and the weird feeling it left behind, Dib’s face felt great. 

“That’s too bad. A Face Muncher might actually do you some good. It might be able to munch your face down to normal size.”

“Ha, ha,” Dib snarked and rolled his eyes. “I thought we were past ‘big head’ jokes.”

“Oh, no. We are never past ‘big head’ jokes. Not until your head stops being so… big.”

Dib glared, and Zim shrugged and walked away. Dib followed and the moment he was back in his room, he immediately went for his glasses. He took a second to wipe them down completely with a lint-free cloth. There would be no point to having used a face mask if he immediately put the same gunk it just pulled out of his pores back in them.

“Ah,” he hummed the moment the glasses rested against his nose. “The world is once again in HD.”

“You do still have video games up here, right?”

“Uh, yeah. I have my system--”

“Good. Give to _Zim._”

Dib tried to hold back the smile that wobbled its way onto his lips as he approached his TV setup, turning on his game system and tossing a controller to Zim. “Go nuts. I’m gonna work on my math stuff.” 

“Yes, yes.”

“And try to keep it down. Please. I know how crazy you get with games sometimes, but my family is sleeping and I don’t want you to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

“Do not worry your stinky head, Dib-worm. I will be quiet.”

Spoilers: He wasn’t.

“Zim, seriously! Be quiet!” 

Dib wasn’t sure if Zim actually heard him or not, as Zim was currently face down against Dib’s blankets, literally screeching. 

Thankfully, the blankets muffled most of it, but Zim pulled his head and the scream trailed out into a loud, “Your system is broken, Dib!”

“It’s not broken, you just suck! Now shut up! Please!” Dib threw his pen at Zim, watching as it bounced off his head and knocked his wig slightly akilter. Zim had no reaction to it, and Dib immediately mourned the loss of his pen. He liked that pen. Why’d he have to throw that one? “Wait, can you toss that pen ba--”

Dib flinched as the pen came soaring for his face, and he ducked out of the way quick enough that it soared to the other side of the room. Dib hoped it didn’t break. He really liked that pen. With a sigh, Dib hefted himself out of his chair and walked to retrieve his pen. His favorite pen. That was probably broken.

Dang it…

Dib stooped to pick it up and examined it as he walked back to his chair and sat down, pressing it to the paper to finish the equation he was working on. When he saw it was still working, he let out a satisfied sigh. Zim also seemed to finally quiet down, which meant Dib could work in-

“You did that equation wrong.”

Dib nearly flung himself from the chair with a shriek. He didn’t notice that Zim had gotten up and made his way next to Dib’s chair. He had one hand braced against the backrest and looked around Dib’s shoulder to peek at his papers. 

Dib glanced at him before settling back against the chair and holding his paper up to look at it better. Zim pointed at a line near the middle of the page and Dib immediately caught his mistake. A simple miscalculation, but it required him to do a lot of backtracking. 

“Oh. Thanks.”

Zim said nothing else, just walked away. Dib heard the system shut off a moment later, and turned to see Zim sprawled out on his bed again, this time with his head towards Dib’s pillows. “Are you tired?” 

“No,” Zim responded, almost instantly. “Your system’s habit of malfunctioning was getting annoying.”

“It’s not broken,” Dib repeated.

“Yeah huh.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Sure is.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Well, if you hate my system so much, why don’t you just leave?”

“Fine. Maybe I will.”

“Great. Maybe then I’ll get some peace and quiet around here and be able to actually get some work done!” He didn’t need to tell Zim that, before he came over, he wasn’t doing anything anyway. 

But Zim didn’t move, and Dib was honestly more grateful for it. He didn’t really want Zim to leave, anyway. Dib prefered to be in his company than without it, especially since he was pretty much the only one he ever talked to anymore. 

Well, more like ‘ever’. Even back when they were constantly trying to kill each other, their little bouts of fighting were where most of Dib’s social interaction came from. Before Zim, Dib had been lonely most of the time, with limited talking to his family and spending most of his time hunting paranormal creatures to present to the Swollen Eyeball Network.

Part of him knew that was the reason he developed a crush. Zim was the only one who treated him like somebody, instead of like a nobody, like all their other classmates did. It felt like Zim was always there for him, and he knew it wasn’t healthy and he was just grasping for straws within their sick codependency, but he couldn’t stop the feelings once they began.

That’s not to say he didn’t immediately try to keep them down- because he did. He tried desperately to swat them away with a broomstick, but the feelings grew, and when they became true friends, the feelings stayed.

Trapped in his mind, the room was silent, the sounds of the scratching of his pen against paper being the only noise between them. 

Zim, predictably, broke the quiet. “Is that disgusting fast-food restaurant still open?”

Dib paused, looking back at him. “MacMeaties?”

“No, the other one.”

“Chicky Licky?”

“No.”

“Burrito King?”

“Yes-- no, wait. The other one.”

“Krazy Taco?”

“Yes! That’s the one.”

“I don’t know if it’s open.” Dib grabbed his phone and checked the time. It was only a little before midnight, which was odd. It felt later. “Probably? I think I heard somewhere that it’s open twenty-four seven.”

Zim stood, reaching to grab something off the ground. “Good. Let’s go.”

“W-Wait, what? Right now? I thought you hated Krazy Taco.”

“I do.”

Dib let out an ‘oof’ as a shirt collided with his face, and he pulled it off to see it was the same one he wore earlier that day. He glanced up and watched Zim climb out of his window, and stood, panicked. “Wait--”

“Get down here in five minutes or I will leave you here.”

And with that, Zim fell out of view. Dib stood and stared at the window for a moment before looking at the shirt, his bare feet, the sweatpants- his limp, wet hair touched his back and he ran both hands through it, dragging all the way through the length of it, with a sigh. 

“Fuck,” he breathed as he grabbed his wallet. That basically summed it up.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this far
> 
> uh
> 
> i never beta-read my stuff so if you noticed any mistakes, chronological errors, etc. lmk plz and thnx


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